So the first issue of the Bob's Burgers comic is out and pretty great (it's written and drawn by writers and artists from the show).

It's got a similar format to the trilogy episode last season -- three tall tales, each from one of the Belcher kids' perspectives: Tina joins the Equestranauts, Louise battles a mind-controlling camera on Picture Day, and Gene -- well, I haven't gotten to Gene's yet; nice to have a comic that's meaty enough not to finish in one sitting. It's also got a page of Bob's ideas for burger names and another of Linda's wine recommendations. (It's not about the wine, it's about how much you drink.)

Even though I know it’s almost impossible that this would be the case, I kind of love the idea of someone who has no idea what the show is to pick up this comic and try figuring out just what the hell this whole thing is actually about. Like, “This one kid’s a horse, but sometimes she’s a girl, and then her brother turns into a singing hamburger, and this kid with the hat is really angry? And I think they have a mom who drinks a lot of wine.”

You know, that’s actually not that far off.

On the one hand, Bob's Burgers losing something without the cast; on the other, their voices are firmly ingrained enough in my head right now that I can read their delivery of the lines just fine.

It's good shit. Buy it. It's apparently sold out at retail but my store had plenty of copies on Wednesday, and you can buy DRM-free digital copies from Comixology or directly from Dynamite. (If you buy directly from Dynamite that means more money to the publisher and none to Amazon, which is probably a good thing; on the other hand, Dynamite's store just went up last week and I hear it's really clunky and requires you to save files to Dropbox before you can download them.)